


prayers run like weeds

by TaleWorthTelling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4088311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWorthTelling/pseuds/TaleWorthTelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But time was funny, and wishes were silly things, and the body was what it was. She died. It was uneventful for her.</p>
<p>But waking up again ... that was something.</p>
<p>[or, that one where Sarah Rogers has strong opinions about the twenty-first century and Steve's hair and Steve just wants his mother]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP, but it shouldn't be very long. Title, once again, from "Walking Far From Home".

Once, at the end of a very long, hard day, so late that it bled into the next, Sarah Rogers thought that she would give anything for one more day with her son. Just one. She knew that she hadn't much longer, and all she could think, what she felt in her bones, was _It's not enough._ It wasn't enough. She'd worked so much, so hard, for so long, and now all she wanted was to get back those stolen hours, spend them on him, on peppering his face with kisses while he complained about being too old for that, on watching him draw and fill with pride, on seeing him smile and laugh as his eyes lit up, on teaching him and learning from him and just being near him. It would never be enough, and then she'd be gone, and what would be left for Steve but a jar full of pennies and dusty memories of a harried mother always rushing off to work and collapsing in exhaustion? She'd tried her best and knew that it was all she could do, tried so hard and given him all she'd had, but a mournful, resentful part of her wasn't comforted by that in the least.

She wanted that time back, just to be with him, hold him like when he'd been young and the world had left fewer marks upon them both.

But time was funny, and wishes were silly things, and the body was what it was. She died. It was uneventful for her.

But waking up again ... that was something.

* * *

 

Sam was late. He was supposed to be meeting Steve at Avengers Tower (which was never going to stop being thrilling and bizarre) for the party that Steve had been roped into attending. Steve was okay with parties in general, but not ones specifically thrown for him, and for his birthday no less. But it was a charity event, and he liked charity, and he liked kids (even if he didn't seem to understand them, which Sam found hilarious and sad all at once), and he'd always be willing to suck it up for a good cause. But Sam had promised he'd be there to soften the mortification just a little.

He was supposed to be there half an hour ago. They were probably taking pictures already. Steve had a very nice picture-taking face, beautiful toothy grin, bright eyes, healthy glow. It was nothing like his actual smile. Sam hadn't realized that he'd never seen Steve smile, really smile, not in that sad, rueful little way he had but for real, until one day he did and Sam felt just about knocked backwards by the force of it. It just made you feel good to be near, feel proud to have brought it out. Never seemed to make it to the camera, though.

But he was who he was, and all the harried stress in the world wouldn't stop him from approaching someone in need and seeing if there was anything he could do to help, so when he saw the woman at the newspaper stand staring blankly out at the street and standing completely still on a Manhattan sidewalk, he veered over. She was average-looking, average height and blonde and unremarkable features, very petite but otherwise healthy-looking, maybe somewhat drawn. Didn't appear armed, weight evenly distributed on both feet, no leaning, no favoring. Uninjured. Just ... lost.

"Excuse me," he said when he got within a few long steps of her. She didn't look up. "Ma'am, do you need help? Is there someone I can call for you?" He hesitated when she didn't answer. "Do you know where you are?"

She laughed. She laughed so hard she started wheezing, and then she started crying. "Of course I know where I am," she finally said, voice half-hysterical and Irish-lilted through a dry, creaking throat. "That's the problem. It doesn't make sense. Tell me where I'm _supposed_ to be, sir, that'd help."

He didn't want to touch her and upset her, so he angled his body suggestively, putting his hand out and moving aside, hoping she'd follow. She did, moving aside so that people could pass and they could duck under an awning for the illusion of privacy and quiet.

"What's your name?" he asked gently, patting his pockets for a tissue. He thought he had some on him.

"Of what importance is that?" she huffed. "If the newsprint's to be believed, and my eyes aren't lyin' to me, my people are gone. Anyone who'd know me's in the ground. Call me whatever you like."

He found the tissues and handed them to her. She looked at him strangely, suspicious, then took them and dried her face. This close, Sam was starting to get mighty discomfited. There was something about her. Something familiar, something striking. Her eyes were very, very blue, and very, very sad.

"I can take you to the police station..." he started to offer, but he trailed off weakly as he saw her react to that suggestion. He sighed. "Okay, then. Let's start over. My name is Sam Wilson. What do you need, ma'am?"

"My child," she said, and all the fight went back out of her. "My life back. Lord willing, maybe my husband, God rest his soul."

"How about a hot meal and some cold water?" Stark had resources. They could find someone to help this woman. Sam couldn't just leave her alone. There was something downright magnetic about her, a power he felt thrumming from her skin. She was either very dangerous or very helpless, and he didn't feel good leaving someone in either one of those situations. One often turned into the other, anyway.

She wiped at her eyes again and sniffed. "I've nothing to lose. Might as well start wandering off with strange men. Looks like I've gone and dreamed up a beautiful shepherd. Since you're not real, I've no shame tellin' you how handsome you are."

His face heated. "Uh, thanks. Look, I'm just headed a couple of blocks over. Come with me, I'll get you some help. No cops. We'll figure this out."

He held out his arm for her and she took it, walking in silence the rest of the way to the tower while her eyes darted from sight to sight, taking in the vastness and hustle of the city.

When they reached the automated doors of the tower, she reacted with skepticism, eyebrows raised, but after a breath she walked through them and Sam went to the reception desk. "Sam Wilson. I'm here for the party. I kind of need to see Stark, though. In private. I, uh, I have a guest." He gestured to the woman who he realized still hadn't given him a name. He really hoped he hadn't brought trouble into this shiny tower and ruined everyone's day, but she didn't seem dangerous to him.

The receptionist glanced at the woman. "I need ID from both of you."

Sam produced his Avengers ID, refraining from rolling his eyes, but he hesitated a little handing it over. "I don't think she has any."

"Then she can't come up."

"Well, you gave it a good try, then. It was nice sharing a dream with you, Mr. Wilson." And she started to walk off.

"No, wait," Sam rushed to say. "Hang on." He sent a quick text to Steve asking him to bully Stark downstairs for a few minutes, got a concerned affirmative reply back, and waited. 

Sure enough, within three minutes, the phone on the desk rang and the receptionist was nodding, pressing a button on her console to open the doors to Stark's private elevator. Sternly, she said, "Go upstairs, wait where the elevator lets you out. No wandering around."

He thanked her and ushered his guest into the elevator, which she barely glanced at, holding herself stiffly and not leaning on the wall or grabbing the handrail as it shot them into the sky. She was remarkably cool for someone who'd been hysterically crying out on the street. Her face was still splotchy from the tears.

"And how do you plan to help me?" she asked, not harsh but weary.

"It would help if I knew your name," he said. "Always a good place to start. You know mine." And now that he thought about it, she hadn't reacted to it, which in itself wasn't that weird -- he was only just starting to gain attention -- but she also hadn't reacted to walking into a landmark building owned by Tony Stark and populated by Avengers. That was ... odd.

"Sarah," she finally said, crossing her arms over her chest.

In the bright lights from the elevator he got a good look at her dress and realized that it wasn't just hipster vintage like he'd assumed for a relatively young woman. It looked really damn old, so out of style that he might not find it even in a Williamsburg thrift store.

"Thank you," he said gently, and then the doors opened and they got out into a quiet room he hadn't been in before. He could hear faint strains of music through the wall, voices mingling.

A couple of minutes later Stark walked in. "What?" he said irritably, not making it sound much like a question. "JARVIS is saying something about a puppy you brought home. How is that even something that requires my personal attention?"

Sam gestured to Sarah, stoic and unmoved by Stark's noisy entrance. "She needs help. I'm an Avenger, I get to make a few calls. I made this one. We can help her."

Stark stared hard at her, as if he hadn't noticed her before, then rolled his eyes. "I'm not a lawyer," he finally said. "And I'm not a doctor. And as far as I can tell, you're not being pursued by angry robots."

"You have resources," Sam continued mildly, still not sure, after all this time, on what ground he and Stark could really meet. They didn't really know each other, hadn't spent much time together, didn't really click. But Sam figured he was sort of his boss, in a roundabout, annoying way. "You have connections and lines to organizations that might be able to help. There's a charity fundraiser just on the other side of that wall. Charity's about more than just photo ops."

Stark bristled and opened his mouth to say something, but just then his brow scrunched and he whipped his head around. "Where'd she go?"

_Shit._ She'd walked off while they were arguing. Sam really, really hoped he hadn't accidentally brought home a tiger.

They rushed off to the doorway Stark had entered from and into the party going at full swing. It wasn't quite a true Stark shindig -- there were kids present, after all, to meet Captain America and wish him and the country a happy birthday -- but there were a lot of people.

He found her off by the bar, running her hand over the wood grain and staring at all the bottles. 

"Sarah," he started, sagging a little in relief, "hey, listen, you gotta do me a favor and stay put for a little while and we can figure this out."

She looked up at him with her eyes wet again, but she didn't start crying. She nodded. 

She was just so out of place here in this bright, noisy room full of snapping cameras and running children that he wanted to hug her. Just give her a good, solid, warm hug that she looked like she'd been aching for for years. He couldn't explain the burning need to help her that crawled through his chest and stole his breath, but he couldn't ignore it either.

He turned to get Stark, but noticed Steve among the throngs of people trying to extricate himself for a break and figured he'd start there instead. Steve would have better luck. He was very good at convincing people to listen to him. He waved Steve over. Steve nodded in acknowledgement and a couple of minutes later managed to shake his admirers and press alike and stride over.

"Happy birthday, man," he said, throwing his arms around Steve because he couldn't hug a stranger who didn't want it, but he had to touch someone, connect with someone. "Sorry I'm late. I got held up, and then--"

But Steve wasn't listening. He'd stiffened completely against Sam's chest in the way that Sam associated with battle-readiness and imminent action. When Sam pulled away Steve was looking over his shoulder completely dumbstruck.

"Steve?" he asked, turning to confirm that Steve was indeed staring at Sarah, and she was looking at him very curiously.

Steve swallowed a few times. Quietly, so quiet that Sam almost didn't hear him through the noise, he spoke. "Mama?"

Sam was frozen in confusion, with a sick feeling growing in his gut. Maybe he'd fucked up.

Steve shook his head hard. "Who are you?" he asked, voice about as cold as ice and just as unforgiving. "What do you want?"

Oh, God. _Sarah._ She'd said to call her Sarah. It couldn't be a trick, could it? Sam had dealt with a lot of weird, uncomfortable, downright sick shit since joining ranks, but what kind of plan hinged on Sam happening to walk by a sad woman and taking her with him like a lost puppy? A terrible plan, that's what. But still, that nagging fear that he'd personally escorted someone out to screw with Steve right into Avengers Tower ... that clenched his stomach.

"Who are you?" she asked impassively. There was a trickle of dread in her eyes, like she knew the answer and wouldn't like it. "Because a kind heaven wouldn't send me my boy in the prime of his life. A kind heaven would send him to me old and withered, with many years behind him."

Steve looked torn between dropping to his knees and lashing out, unsure whether to be suspicious of foul play or just confused. 

"Why don't we go somewhere private?" he said, not asking, and tugged Steve toward the nearest door, hoping it was an empty room and that Sarah would follow. It was and she did, finally crumpling, sinking onto a couch and burying her face in her hands.

"I didn't believe in an afterlife," she whispered through her fingers. "I just pretended. I thought I'd die and that'd be it. This ... this is ..." She started crying again, quiet tears dripping down her wrists.

Steve was hardened by what he'd seen and been through, innately suspicious and deeply wary of being manipulated. But he couldn't ignore someone in pain any more than Sam could. Awkwardly, uncomfortable, he sat down beside her and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Are you confused?" he asked, maybe coming around to the idea that there was something other than malicious foul play going on. 

"I'm very confused," she said, "but you're not makin' it any easier."

He shifted a little closer and leaned in, and his eyes opened wide, then clenched shut. His hand tightened on her shoulder.

"What?" Sam moved forward, startled.

"You smell like lavender," he whispered. "And iodine."

"The lavender is to cover the iodine," she said woodenly. 

"It lingers something awful," Steve agreed, sounding like he was repeating something he'd heard many times before. He wiped his eyes, hesitating before he grabbed her hand and held it between his. They both hissed a little at the contact, yanking their hands away.

And the three of them stared at the bright, luminous symbols painting their palms.

The Norse symbols, in fact.

Steve looked up first, and Sam could almost see the thoughts rolling across his brain. Hope was dangerous, but he'd been through much weirder shit than this.

Steve turned his body and crushed Sarah into his embrace. "I don't even care if you're not real, Ma," he muttered desperately, face wet and scrunched. 

"I care very much if you're real." She tentatively slipped her arms around his broad chest, letting him fit his face into her neck in a perfectly practiced move, reaching tender and shaking fingers up to stroke his hair. "If you're real, then you're dead, too. I hope you're just a dream, Steve."

Steve drew a shuddering breath, and Sam got that. If he could hear his mother say his name one more time ...

"I'll get Thor," he said. Neither of them looked up. He backed out of the room and found Stark, who rolled his eyes and stalked toward him irately. Before Stark could open his mouth, he said, "We may have a problem."


	2. Chapter 2

Miracle of miracles, Thor was at the party, too, letting a group of kindergartners pet his cape and ooh and ah. 

Sam relaxed his posture when he walked up. Kids spooked easy, very attuned to body language, and he didn't want to worry them. "Thor," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral in a way that kids ignored but set adult nerves on edge, "my man, glad I could find you. I have this thing I think I need you to look at."

Thor's eyes narrowed. "Wilson," he greeted, "it is good to see you. To what do I pledge my assistance?"

"It's about Steve." He lowered his voice. "And it's ... I think it's from your neck of the woods."

Thor leaped to action, carefully and efficiently removing tiny child hands from his person and setting a toddler back into her mother's arms. "Yes, I know, I know, children, but I shall yet return. I believe it is time for a very large cake to emerge from that door, right over there. To miss that would be a great injustice." The kids weren't totally fooled, but they let themselves be distracted and herded away.

Thor followed Sam. Stark was already in the side room, watching Steve and Sarah with a very uncomfortable, almost constipated expression, as though everything he'd thought about the situation had not prepared him for this. Sam kind of felt that way, too.

When Thor crossed the threshold of the room, he rocked back as if he'd been struck. For a guy built like a brick house who Sam had seen shake off blows that would kill a man -- even a man like Steve -- it was unnerving as hell.

"Jesus, what was that?" Stark demanded. He scrubbed a hand down his face. "Why is it always Asgard? Fuck, I hate magic."

"So it is magic?" Sam asked, not bothering to keep the urgent note out of his voice.

Steve was ignoring them all, still clinging to Sarah, a big man trying to fill a very small space as though he'd never left it. Sam couldn't help but think about the condition of the last person who'd been returned to him, how well that had gone, how changed he'd been. Sarah didn't seem like a bionic assassin with homicidal urges toward Steve, but time would tell. The world was a weird place and a lot of it seemed concentrated into a few square miles sometimes. If there was a Geiger counter for the bizarre and creepy, it'd be blowing up just sitting in their pockets.

"This space is thick with potent magics," Thor rumbled, crossing the room more slowly, wincing. "It is as you say. Asgardian."

"You recognize it?"

Thor hesitated. He knelt beside the couch and looked at Sarah, not a friendly look, but not a threatening one either. "Do you know from whence you came?"

Sarah reluctantly pulled herself away from Steve, still absently combing her fingers through his hair. She looked into Thor's eyes and his breath stuttered. "I died."

Steve finally straightened up, looking very unhappy about having to do so. No one was judging, really. Here they were, a room full of men with dead mothers surrounded by magic so strong it spooked a god. Sam almost wanted to check the closet for a familiar face of his own.

Thor nodded. "This is the last you remember? This, no other?"

She started to nod, then tilted her head in thought. "I remember ... a voice. Sounded like wind, but there were words."

"What did they say?"

She looked away. "'Need.' It said 'need'."

Thor turned their hands over to look at their palms. Upon closer inspection, the symbols weren't the same. The one on Sarah's palm looked kind of like an x, the one on Steve's a very crooked little lowercase T. They looked painful.

Thor touched Steve's hand. "That is what it says. There is a need within you that the goddess Eir saw fit to fill. This is her work." He turned back to Sarah's hand. "And this is her gift to you. A blessing. There is no darkness here." Nevertheless, he looked sad, voice heavy with compassion and regret. "Though I fear the meddling of my kind. Kindness is not always what we imagine it to be."

Steve looked up at Thor. "But ... she's really ..."

Thor nodded. "This is your kin, Steve. Be at peace."

Steve hugged her close again even fiercer than before, almost overwhelming her before he thought to control his strength. 

"Steve," Sam tried, approaching and shaking Steve's shoulder a little, "Steve, I think you've got a few things to explain to her."

It took another long moment for Steve to let go again, and it was like he was waking up from a dream. "Explain," he said dumbly. "Yes. Right." But he didn't seem to have anything to say, content just to look at her and feel her warmth.

Sam shook his head. He'd catch Steve up later. "This is about that Valkyrie we rescued, right? The one who'd been trapped in a mortal body?" That had been a hell of a thing, when they'd switched her back and she'd released her wrath upon her captors. She'd been particularly smitten with Steve, which wasn't surprising but was a little unfair, since Sam had done a good bit of the legwork on that one. But she hadn't said anything about a reward, and it had been several months.

"Eir's daughter, yes. This is her gratitude."

Thor turned back to Sarah and said, very carefully, "You are no longer mortal, but neither are you dead. You have been taken from your rest in the mortal afterlife, a surely distressing plight. I beg of you not to despair. You are safe. You are not lost." He stood. "Rest now. I shall have words with Eir. Asgardians are ... not wholly mindful of the human condition. I shall set this right." He left without another word.

Sam pulled up a chair and sat heavily. So. This was really happening. This was happening, and this was Steve Rogers's mother. Steve had never spoken about her much, unlike Sam, who never missed an opportunity to share an anecdote or memory about his family, no matter how damn sad it made him sometimes. But then, there were other people to remember them, too, people who Sam could reminisce with. Steve's people were all gone. The only person left alive who remembered Sarah Rogers was him. (And maybe Bucky Barnes, wherever he was.)

Sam tried to imagine that, having no one who remembered his mother, no one who had been touched by her warmth and could talk about her. He thought about what it would be like to have her relegated to a footnote in a history textbook, significant only because her existence had led to his. He didn't think he could stand that.

He looked like her. It was remarkable, really, the resemblance. Steve was her son, alright. 

"So this isn't hell? Or anything else?" she asked. She didn't relax, but she did smooth her thumb over Steve's hand, back and forth. Sam wasn't sure if she knew that she was doing it.

"Nope," Steve said, twisting his fingers through hers. "Just the future. Still on the fence about that one."

"None of this makes any sense." She paused. "Is that self-pity I heard just now?"

"No, ma'am," he rushed to say.

"Good. I don't stand for that, you know."

"I know, Ma." He leaned in again.

She sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll find you a bottle for yourself and you can dab it behind your ears. No woman will resist."

Steve snorted. Then he sighed, too. "Sam's right. We're not in a vacuum here. There are some things I should explain."

Like his souped-up body, the fact that it was 2015 and he was still alive and young, why he was hanging around a guy in a cape. Or the uniform that Sam suddenly remembered Steve was wearing, all dressed up for the fourth of July and probably absurd-looking to someone who didn't know why. (A little absurd-looking even to someone who did know, to be honest. At least when he wasn't kicking ass. It stopped looking so silly then.) How had they spent this day eighty-some odd years ago? 

"Sweetheart," she said, resigning herself to the fever dream she'd awoken to, "the only thing I care about is that you're still breathing. Tell me again that this is real and we're not meeting at the gates and I'll happily sleep for a week and deal with the rest later."

Steve's jaw tensed, jumped. He cupped her face in his hands. "I'm very real." He pulled one of her hands from her lap and placed it over his heart. "I'm alive. I'm right here." His lips twitched. "The Norse god just told you so."

"That's not helping your case, son." She smiled, not too hopeful, but just enough to make her look younger. "But I'll take it." 

Sam felt bolstered by her faith, by her calm in this storm of uncertainty, by the realization that the resemblance went deeper than looks.

"You're not ..." Steve hesitated. "You're not sick? You feel okay?" Now that he was getting over the shock, he was assessing her again, this time not for threat but for condition.

"I think once you've died the disease retires," she said dryly.

Steve winced. "Stop saying that. Please. It's nothing to joke about."

She raised her eyebrows. "You had a pretty dry sense of humor, too, last I checked."

He hesitated. "A lot's changed since then."

Her eyes softened. She looked around the room, really seeing it for the first time, taking in Sam, and Stark in the corner, and Steve. She laid her hand over the star on his chest, eyes wide and knowing, unnerved. "Aye, so they have."


End file.
